Nana and Sandy came to visit!

I feel the need to report that Nana is fine.  :)

Nana came to see us and in keeping with tradition she brought a natural disaster with her.  The last time she came to visit us she brought a volcanic eruption in Iceland ...with this visit Nana arrived on Saturday and Sandy the Hurricane arrived on Sunday.   :)

We are definitely not in the path of the hurricane, we are about four hours north of it and I was beyond surprised when we got the automated phone call Sunday night that school was cancelled on Monday.  The kids went to bed Sunday night happy they got to sleep in and Nana went to bed happy she would get an extra day of having the kids at home.

Monday morning it was cloudy and a little rainy, nothing that would have indicated "hurricane" ...so we went out for breakfast.  :)  The rest of the day was uneventful, Paul and I split up to do some grocery shopping and Nana played with the kids all day long.  It finally got windy around 3pm, but nothing that I would have imagined would have justified closing school, but oh well...  :)

THEN...  :)  Just as I started cooking dinner the power went off.  Perfect timing!  Now I had a really good reason to NOT cook dinner!  :)  ...but Happy, being the boy scout he is, was prepared.  (Note: Paul is not a boy scout.  I'm pretty sure he is a boy scout drop out, but Scotty just started in cub scouts and so now I know their motto is "Be prepared" ...hmmmm, actually I think it's "Do your best.".  Oh well... I thought I was making a joke.

Anyways....  Happy had bought a generator when we moved here and I didn't even know a normal person would own one of these things.  Up until now I didn't even really know what a generator was.  :)  It's this big thing that runs on gas and it gives power to your house ...or most of your house.  Ours doesn't run the oven or dishwasher and only runs half the lights.  Apparently in New Hampshire you have to take power into your own hands because when the power does go out, it can be out for a very long time.  So when the power really did go out it was almost fun to turn on the generator and make ourselves some power!  :)

Ten minutes later the power came back on.

I had to cook dinner.  Ugh.

I cooked dinner and no kidding, the minute dinner was done, the power went back off.

So we turned the generator on so we could have lights... then we turned the OFF lights to eat by candlelight because it was more fun that way.  :)

We were only without power for a couple hours, but not really thanks to Mr. Generator.  I think the next time we lose power we will hold off on starting the generator on.  Paul was just excited to try out his new toy to see if it worked.

As for the weather yesterday, it was just windy and rainy.  We didn't notice anything hurricane like.  We went to bed Monday night thinking we would have school the next day, despite all the other nearby towns having cancelled.  I woke up at 5:45, checked websites and email and since there wasn't any indication of school being cancelled I woke up all the kids.  As sure enough, as soon I manage to drag Sierra's sleepy butt out of bed the automated phone call comes... school has been cancelled again; this time not due to weather, but due to power outages and road blockages.  So it was 6:10 am and all the kids were awake... it's going to be a long day...  We made some hot chocolate, sat by the fire and watched the news for a while.  Michaela was the only one smart enough to go back to bed.

Currently it's 8:00 AM on Tuesday; it's not rainy or windy and we have power in our house ...as well as four school aged kids.  At least it's another day with Nana.  :)

From watching the news it seems New York has had better days, but here in New Hampshire we are a little wet, but just fine.

14

KE is 14.  I forgot to mention that.  Don't feel bad though Michaela, because as Happy pointed out last night, I'm not a very good blog writer anymore.

Michaela's birthday happened long ago on the 10th, but her main gift was a weekend at a local Anime Convention that just happened this past weekend.  Anime has seemed to have overtaken my sweet daughter's life, but as a result of this new hobby she has made some nice friends who enjoy the same thing; and even better, she has traded aimlessly trolling facebook with writing her own little anime stories.  I'm not at liberty to discuss the content of this stories, much less post them...  something to take up with her on your own I guess!

PS.  On her real birthday she had an away soccer game and didn't get home until late so we took her out for dinner the night before where my little birthday girl consumed an entire rack of ribs!  Oink Oink.  :)

...and if you want to know what an Anime Convention is you'll have to google it, but Michaela and three of her friends had a great time dressed as the characters of Black Butler.  Very cute/amusing.  Her cake was the character she dressed up as...  well, the cake was the character she dressed up as, when that character is a guy.  Very confusing.  I just smile and go along with it ...because what else can I do?  :)  Can you even pick her out of the group??

  
Happy Birthday KE.  ...even though I kinda want to strangle you on a daily basis, I still love you lots.  Promise.

HOLLY in new HAMPSHIRE!

My friends are awesome.  Holly has now traveled to three countries to see me ...four if you count the time she drove across Denmark to help me cook food for our "moving to Germany" party.  :)

I think the last time I saw Holly was when she came to see us in Canada ...I think the last time I saw her husband was when he flew through Hamburg and I met him at the airport for the hand off of a suitcase full of American goodness that Holly had packed special for me.  :)

I totally miss my international friends, so having a familiar face to hang out with was beyond wonderful! ...besides, Holly and Chuck were the best guests on earth!  How many visitors do you know who would show up AND cook dinner for you!  Holly is a great cook so for fun I like to send her pictures of the horrible things I do in the kitchen.  After she got this picture:

...she decided I needed help.  :)  HA!  This was my attempt at being fancy.  Maybe it can be a contest to guess what on earth they are.  :)  I'll tell you later....

Anyways, Holly taught me how to make a great stuffed chicken dinner and we even made our own pizza - including the crust ...like with real pizza dough ...that used real yeast!  I've never used yeast to make anything, much less something that needed "kneading"!  It was fun!  The best part was letting the dough grow and then punching it down.  :)

Holly and I also did some sightseeing.  We went on an adventure to look for "New England Fall Colors".  Apparently people come to New England around this time to look at colorful leaves.  :)   I think the leaves all changed from green to beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows a few days after Holly left,  BUT we did see Covered Bridge #65!!  :)   Apparently people come to New England to see covered bridges too.  :)

Really though, we did see pretty leaves, the bridge was cool, and it was a fun day with just the two of us!

The next day Holly and her husband took off to Vermont, but came back in time to make cookies with the kids. :)  ...and the following day they ended their New England tour with a drive through Maine on their way back to Boston to catch their plane back home.  They are professional travelers.  :)  Love them both!  I'm really glad they came to see us.  Thanks guys!!!  :)

...okay.  The picture.  They are potatoes.  Sad, wrinkly, salt covered potatoes   :(  I tried to make some salt crusted potatoes, but I'm pretty sure I used the wrong salt and I know the egg whites didn't help.  They looked like snow balls.  Ewww..  So salty you couldn't even bite them.  I had to serve them because we had guests and I had to give them something so I rubbed the salt off and tried to wash them off.  HA!  Fiasco.  They were wrinkly and gross and I'd rather never think about them again...  but here I am posting the picture for the world to see.  :)